Libya's collapse reshapes how North Africa thinks about survival
Fifteen years after the NATO intervention that unmade Libya, its neighbours Algeria and Morocco have together spent $31.7 billion arming themselves in 2025 — a figure that speaks less to any single threat than to the enduring anxiety a collapsed state can produce across an entire region. Algeria, flush with hydrocarbon wealth, now carries Africa's largest defence budget and devotes nearly a tenth of its economy to military power, while Morocco — backed by Washington and anchored in a more diversified economy — quietly assembles one of the continent's most modern Western-equipped forces. What unfolds between these two rivals is not merely a bilateral competition but a regional reckoning with the long consequences of intervention, fragmentation, and the vacuum that follows when a heavily armed state simply ceases to hold together.
- Algeria's defence budget surged to $25.4 billion — 8.8% of GDP and a quarter of all government spending — placing it behind only war-torn Ukraine in the share of national wealth committed to military power.
- Morocco, without comparable oil revenues, still outspent far larger African economies, raising its defence budget to $6.3 billion on the strength of phosphates, manufacturing, and a diversified economic base.
- The two nations are arming along opposing superpower lines: Algeria acquiring Russian Su-34M strike fighters and Su-57E fifth-generation jets, while Morocco expands its US-backed F-16 fleet, adds Apache helicopters, and fields HIMARS rocket systems.
- Deliveries of Algeria's most advanced Russian aircraft have been delayed by the war in Ukraine and Western sanctions, introducing uncertainty into a modernisation programme already years in the making.
- Libya's 2011 collapse — which erased Africa's largest proven oil reserves from any stable governance — remains the silent engine behind North Africa's militarisation, reminding every neighbouring capital what external intervention can leave behind.
- North Africa has quietly become one of the continent's most heavily armed regions, not through a single war but through the slow, compounding strategic calculations that one intervention set in motion.
Fifteen years after NATO's campaign ended Muammar Gaddafi's rule and left Libya without a functioning state, two of its neighbours are engaged in a military buildup that shows no sign of stopping. In 2025, Algeria and Morocco together spent $31.7 billion on defence — a sum that reflects not just mutual suspicion but the broader instability that Libya's collapse set loose across the region.
Algeria carried the heavier load. Its military budget rose 11 percent to $25.4 billion, the largest on the African continent, consuming 8.8 percent of GDP and roughly a quarter of all government expenditure. Only Ukraine, actively at war, devoted a larger share of its economy to defence. Algeria's oil and gas revenues make this level of spending sustainable in ways few African states could replicate. Morocco, lacking comparable hydrocarbon wealth, nonetheless raised its budget 6.6 percent to $6.3 billion — surpassing South Africa and Nigeria despite both having larger economies — drawing on a more diversified base of manufacturing, tourism, agriculture, and its commanding position in global phosphate markets.
The two countries are equipping themselves along opposing superpower lines. Algeria has turned to Russia, becoming the first foreign operator of the Su-34M strike fighter and holding a 2019 agreement for 42 advanced aircraft including Su-35Es and Su-57E fifth-generation jets, though Russia's war in Ukraine has delayed deliveries. Morocco has pursued American hardware: F-16s, AH-64E Apache helicopters with first deliveries confirmed in April 2026, HIMARS rocket systems, and exploratory interest in the F-35 stealth fighter.
The motivations diverge but overlap. Morocco's spending is anchored in the long-running Western Sahara dispute. Algeria's posture is shaped by Libya's chaos on its eastern flank, Sahel instability to the south, and a determination never to be vulnerable to the kind of Western-backed intervention that erased Gaddafi's government. Libya once held Africa's largest proven oil reserves and some 144 tonnes of central-bank gold; today it remains politically fragmented, a standing lesson in what collapse looks like and how long its consequences last.
Egypt has emerged as the region's dominant military power in the post-Gaddafi era, but Algeria and Morocco continue to expand, and North Africa has become one of the continent's most militarised regions — transformed not by a single war but by the cascading logic of a single intervention and the strategic anxieties it has never stopped generating.
Fifteen years after NATO's bombs stopped falling on Libya, two North African powers are locked in a military competition that shows no signs of slowing. In 2025, Algeria and Morocco together spent $31.7 billion on defence—a staggering sum that reflects not just rivalry between neighbours, but the long shadow cast by the 2011 intervention that toppled Muammar Gaddafi and left a power vacuum the region is still trying to fill.
Algeria carried most of that burden. Its military budget climbed 11 percent to $25.4 billion, making it the largest defence budget on the African continent. That figure represented 8.8 percent of the country's gross domestic product and consumed roughly a quarter of all government spending. By those measures, only war-torn Ukraine spent a larger share of its economy on the military. Israel, for comparison, allocated 7.8 percent of GDP to defence. Algeria's oil and gas wealth—the country's primary source of foreign currency and government revenue—makes this level of spending sustainable in ways few other African nations could manage.
Morocco, lacking comparable hydrocarbon reserves, nonetheless increased its defence spending by 6.6 percent to $6.3 billion. That sum exceeded South Africa's $3.2 billion and Nigeria's $2.1 billion, despite both countries having larger economies. Morocco's spending reflects a more diversified economic base: manufacturing, tourism, agriculture, financial services, and a dominant position in global phosphate reserves through the state-controlled OCP Group. The kingdom has also been investing heavily in mining, with a 2026 tender covering 13,000 square kilometres of gold and copper exploration.
The two countries are arming themselves along opposing lines, each backed by a different superpower. Algeria has turned to Russia, recently becoming the first foreign operator of the Su-34M strike fighter. A 2019 arms deal with Moscow committed Algeria to 42 advanced combat aircraft: 14 Su-34MEs, 14 Su-35Es, and 14 Su-57E fifth-generation fighters, though Russia's war in Ukraine and Western sanctions have delayed deliveries originally scheduled for 2025. Algeria's existing arsenal already includes more than 70 Su-30 fighters, MiG-29 aircraft, dozens of Su-24M strike jets, Russian-built T-90 battle tanks, S-300 air-defence systems, and Kilo-class submarines.
Morocco has pursued a Western-backed modernisation centred on American equipment. The Royal Moroccan Air Force operates 23 F-16C/D Block 52+ jets, with Washington approving a potential $3.8 billion sale of 25 newer F-16C/D Block 72 aircraft in 2019, alongside an upgrade programme for existing fighters to the F-16V standard. Morocco has also explored acquiring F-35 stealth fighters, though no formal order has been announced. Beyond jets, Morocco approved a $524.2 million package in 2023 covering 18 HIMARS launchers, 40 Army Tactical Missile Systems, and 72 precision-guided rockets. In 2020, the kingdom ordered 24 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters for $1.5 billion, with first deliveries confirmed in April 2026 and an option for 12 more.
The drivers of this arms race are distinct but interconnected. Morocco's spending is largely shaped by the Western Sahara dispute, a territorial claim that has simmered for decades. Algeria's military posture, meanwhile, has been reshaped by the fallout from Libya's collapse, instability along its eastern border, turmoil across the Sahel, and a determination to deter any future Western-backed intervention. When Gaddafi fell in 2011, Libya held Africa's largest proven oil reserves and about 144 tonnes of central-bank gold. Fifteen years later, the country remains politically fragmented, its instability a constant reminder to neighbouring capitals of what can happen when external powers intervene in regional affairs.
Egypt has emerged as the region's leading military power in the post-Gaddafi era, but Algeria and Morocco continue to expand their forces as Libya, once one of the region's most heavily armed and resource-rich states, struggles to reconstitute itself. North Africa has become one of Africa's most militarised regions, a transformation driven not by any single conflict but by the cascading consequences of a single intervention and the strategic calculations it set in motion.
Citações Notáveis
Algeria's military spending is equivalent to about a quarter of total government expenditure and ranks second only to Ukraine globally in share of GDP devoted to defence.— Stockholm International Peace Research Institute data
Morocco's defence ties with Israel following the 2020 Abraham Accords have been linked to its prospects of acquiring F-35 stealth fighters and expanded access to American military equipment.— Defence analysts and US ally status documentation
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does Algeria spend so much more than Morocco—nearly four times as much—when they're neighbours with similar concerns?
Algeria has oil and gas wealth that gives it the financial capacity. But it's also about threat perception. Algeria sees Libya's collapse as a warning about what happens when a regional power weakens. It's spending to ensure that doesn't happen to them.
So this isn't really about Morocco. It's about Libya.
It's both. Morocco has its own dispute with Western Sahara, so it needs to maintain military credibility. But yes, Libya casts a long shadow. When NATO intervened in 2011, it removed a heavily armed state from the equation. That created a vacuum and a lesson: never be weak enough to be vulnerable to external intervention.
Why are they buying from opposite sides—Russia and America?
Geography and alliance patterns. Morocco has been a US ally since 2004 and has defence ties with Israel since 2020. Algeria has historical ties to Russia and sees American military presence in the region as a potential threat. It's Cold War logic applied to North Africa.
Can they actually afford this? These are enormous budgets.
Algeria can, because of oil revenue. Morocco is stretching further—its economy is more diversified but smaller. But both see military spending as essential to survival in a region where the rules can change overnight, as Libya showed.
What happens next? Does this spiral?
That depends on whether Libya stabilises and whether the US-Russia competition in the region intensifies. Right now, both countries are modernising their forces in parallel. If one feels threatened by the other's acquisitions, the spending accelerates. The risk is that military buildups create their own logic.